


So this is Christmas and what have you done?

by A_French_Ship



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Eve, Day Off, Loneliness, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21937582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_French_Ship/pseuds/A_French_Ship
Summary: Coming back from a mission on Christmas Eve, James has nothing to do and no one to spend the holiday with. He hopes Q will be of some help.
Relationships: James Bond & Q, James Bond/Q
Kudos: 73





	So this is Christmas and what have you done?

MI6 barely changed when Christmas was near. To be honest it never changed at all. Every year James could not help but think about how the tough building remained untouched by the Christmas frenzy that albeit wrapped all around London. Most of the time James was not even on British soil to witness it, but every now and then, quite fortuitously, he found himself there to realise how unsettling the chasm between the outside and the inside was.

That year was a strange exception. He had just been back from a three-week-long mission in Santiago, almost completely unharmed, by double agents’ standards, of course. So after a quick hour-long examination at Medical, Bond was ready to register and give his props back to Q.

That night again James had no one to go back home to. No one to celebrate Christmas with, like most of the 00-agents, apart from Clarence, that lucky bastard. James did not envy him though. Having a family? Hiding the truth from them and lying to cover the scars? Thanks, but no thanks. Back in the days, James would have spent Christmas drinking with Alec, if they were both in London, which had curiously happened a few times. But along with Alec’s death had come a strong sense of solitude. Most of the time James pretended he did not feel it at all, he barely knew it existed, yet his grief was what sometimes made his psychological tests sink. M knew it, Tanner knew it, there was no way he could keep on hiding it.

The first Christmas without Alec had been the worst. That was why he had always volunteered to go on extra missions when the end of December dangerously reared its head. Now, after more than twelve years, James managed. More or less.

On his way to the Quartermaster’s, James didn’t catch sight of Moneypenny and he imagined she had already gone back home. James had heard the rumours regarding a potential new boyfriend of hers. The world did not simply stop turning because he was on a mission, James thought with a bitter smile. For a little while they had gently flirted with each other. A long time ago. The flirting had never been more than veiled camaraderie, or so they both used to say, yet it did not prevent James’s stomach to squeeze with uneasiness. 

It was the 24th of December, 7PM, when he stepped into the mainly empty R&A building, all the minions sent home by their superior. James remained as silent as the growing smile on his face and the slight limp left by a second of hesitation on the field allowed it.

Even though Q had probably seen him right away, he did not make any sign of acknowledgement, no greetings, no bittersweet jokes about a lost piece of equipment. James paused near the entrance door and waited patiently for the younger man to finish whatever he was doing with what resembled a car radio.

What an eerie hour for a man of Q’s age to still be working. Especially on Christmas Eve. James supposed his youth had been spent like such, messing around with screwdrivers and not particularly minding the gingerbread and the carollers.

Q was not so young anymore. James could bet his temples had whitened those last years – blame it on the agents – and behind his glasses lied the unmistakable wrinkles of a man who had overworked himself, hunched above a computer station. In spite of everything, James found him gorgeous, his wit unchanged, still morbidly delightful and surprising after years of bantering with James through their earpieces. 

“What on earth did they give you in Medical for you not to have spoken yet?” came Q’s voice from the back of the room. He was still engrossed in the observation of the car radio and his gaze moved up only to check on the reception of his joke, a smirk on his lips.

Oh, James was lost every time Q gave him the know-it-all smile. Smitten over it. The agent consoled himself with his conviction that no one could resist such an adorable proof of Q’s narcissism.

“Are you going to stay here all night long?” James replied, walking towards the aluminium table on which Q was currently working. He stopped when his hands could rest on the edge of the table.

No growing annoyance at the fact that his question had been answered to by another question? James might have been dreaming. Q usually was that predictable, especially at this hour of the day, especially after handling several double-0 missions during the last few weeks. There was an empty cup of Earl Grey on one corner of the table, several others on his desk. James was sure it had been his only meals of the day. Of the last few days.

“Let me just finish this,” Q replied, connecting some wires to each other at the back of the radio. “And I’m all yours.” It only took a few seconds. “Anything broken today?” He asked, a large condescending smile hiding his irritation.

James set his two guns on the table, along with a crooked piece of metal whose sight made Q freeze.

“Happy Christmas, Q,” James greeted with an even larger smile, knowing the tempest was near.

Q bit back his anger. “Is that my new radio transmitter, 007?” 

The smile grew wider on Bond’s face, which was enough of an answer for the younger man who let out an exhausted sigh. It somehow changed James’s mood, the smile cracking ever so slightly as he understood that maybe his usual cockiness was too much for Christmas Eve.

“Would you like to have tea after that?” He asked Q, feigning casualness by leaning against one of the working tables. “There’s no holiday for vending machines.”

The last comment made Q snort, an amused smirk tugging the side of his mouth. “Next time, 007, bring tea _before_ giving me your gadgets back.” His fingers turned around his late radio transmitter, inspecting every side of what remained before eventually talking again. “As for tea, don’t you have a woman waiting to be kissed under the mistletoe?”

“I’m afraid I’m not one for Christmas traditions.” 

“Tell me about it,” Q echoed with a mirthless chuckle before his fingers stilled around the guns James had brought back almost intact. That was a far cry from Christmas presents.

“Is that a yes, then?” James reiterated his offer, casualness more and more difficult to fake. It was not much of a proposition he was coming up with, but the younger fellow was intuitive enough to maybe catch the slight hope in his co-worker’s tone.

James would’ve been lying if he didn’t say he had had a crush on Q for a long time, from the moment the young man had proven his abilities during the Silva debacle and maybe even before, when they had met at the National Gallery, under the 18th century eyes of so many characters. There was a likeness to Q’s demeanour, a soft sting every time their banter would go on and on, a resistance Bond didn’t encounter oftentimes.

Not that his attraction for him lied on Q not giving in soon enough to James’s taste, far from it. James simply had the impression that he was talking with an equal and not someone he had to save, someone he had to protect, someone he had to seduce for the sake of England.

Freedom, it seemed, was the driving force of his appeal, and perhaps that was the most important.

“I actually have someone picking me up, 007.”

Bond’s eyebrows creased ever so slightly. He fought for a few seconds to remain as calm as possible, although he ceased to lean against the table, his posture stiffening, which Q undoubtedly spotted right away despite his expert scrutiny of the transmitter.

“Boyfriend?” James asked, concealing his strangled voice behind the action of clearing his throat. _Not even close to credible_.

This time Q stopped and looked up at Bond, analysing his expression for less than three seconds before finally making a diagnosis – envious. Of whom though? Him or the other man?

“Something of the sort…” He answered mysteriously, his eyes peering above his glasses.

James silently ate his words, casting Q a bright and knowing smile, projecting all the bawdy scenes he could figure out to Q who would surely not put them into practice. James believed he knew him enough to say without a doubt that his favourite quartermaster was not very sexual, to say the least. Though Q had never let anything slip past his mask of calm alabaster.

“I’ll ask about all the juicy details to Moneypenny once she’s back,” Bond half threatened while making his way out of the room.

“Please don’t,” Q called from the back of the lab, where he had moved his tools and tidied his workstation.

* * *

It’s not that James didn’t believe his Quartermaster could be spending Christmas Eve with someone whose status could resemble that of a boyfriend, but the egocentric part in James – the one he simply called sceptical – doubted there was some truth in Q’s words.

_Something of the sort_ , he repeated himself as he was enjoying a glass of gin in an expensive pub near the MI6's building. He usually drank in the silence and semi-darkness of his Chelsea apartment, but tonight he wanted to be perfectly sure. He wouldn’t call it a failure if he didn’t have the proof that Q’s interest was set on someone else. Someone who wasn’t him.

In his jealous mind, James came up with silly justifications to Q’s wording. _Something_ , not someone. His young Quartermaster was geeky enough to consider nights of coding by himself a romantic activity. At this point James didn’t regard this interpretation as delusional. 

In spite of everything, juniper had never tasted that bitter in his mouth.

The picture window opened on the calm street which would be considered completely anodyne if it weren’t for the couple of British military men keeping a lookout near an armoured door serving as the MI6 staff exit. That was a masochistic instinct which had led Bond to spy on Q’s whereabouts on Christmas Eve. Every middle-age man walking down the street had become a potential threat to his already broken ego, but James couldn’t prevent himself from glaring at each of them while nursing his drink.

The bar in itself was a scant consolation – his gin being scandalously diluted with tonic, which was his main preoccupation in times of unwelcome contradiction. Moneypenny had sarcastically used the word ‘bougey’ to describe the bar but James straight-up refused to use the word, although the decor was indeed too neo-classical, the alcohol too expensive and he was positive the waiters kept glaring at his scraped knuckles as if they were any indication of the shape of his finances.

An hour after having left him in R&D, James saw Q walking out of the building and greeting the military men on his way out. He watched him as the younger man stopped to readjust his scarf around his neck and the blue beanie which had a hard time keeping all of his messy locks covered from the steady winter wind. London had known its annual cold spell a little bit earlier this year.

James shifted on his stool, trying to stay as still as possible while still watching his quartermaster standing in the middle of the kerb. Q retrieved his smart phone from the pocket of his duffel coat, not his usual MI6 phone, but another one, surely performing equally well, but devoted to his life outside of work. Which meant little time.

He apparently sent a text and waited longer on the pavement. His identification badge was not hanging from his neck like it usually did. James even noticed that he was standing far enough from the MI6 exit that one wouldn’t necessarily suspect he worked there. There was a tube station nearby and some IT agencies further down the road. James assumed Q’s cover was sufficiently unscathed, he was a professional.

Suddenly a black car stopped along the kerb and Q almost startled, hurrying to the passenger’s door and opening it without much delay. James saw his silhouette bending on the side, just like that of the driver, a forty-year-old man dressed in blue, from what he could see from afar. There was a few seconds during which time seemed to stop around the blond-haired agent, then the car drove away.

“Another one,” he told a waitress as she passed near his table. If asked a couple of minutes earlier, James would’ve answered that he didn’t want to dawdle in the ‘bougey’ bar, but now his body felt heavier of a few stones and his mind slow and incapable of anything. Then his phone vibrated against his side pocket – his MI6 phone. The screen was blue, lit by a text from his quartermaster.

_Aren’t you off duty, 007? My pulling open of some Christmas crackers hardly qualifies as a threat for Queen and country. Please save your license to kill for a more appropriate moment and go home._

James didn’t want to tell him there wasn’t such thing as home to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a ficlet that has been in my mind for a long time. It suits the holiday period, I guess, even though it’s not as happy as it could (should?) be.   
> Have a nice holiday season!


End file.
